Rainbow Mountain 12,043′, Florence Peak 12,432′, Tulare Peak 11,654′ and Vandever Mountain 11,947′
Sierra Nevada
Total Time: 11:30
Distance: 18.9 miles
Elevation Gain: 7760′
Crux: Class 3
Trailhead: Mineral King, full services
It had been two years since my last visit to Mineral King and I was overdue to brave the 20 miles of hairpin turns and tick off a few more SPS summits before snows ended my High Sierra Season. It was mid September, and I had only managed to climb 5 new SPS summits, well off track for breaking 100 peaks by the end of the season. In order to pad my stats, I needed to double up, and settled on a traverse of Florence Peak and Vandever Mountain just south of Mineral King. Even with an early wake up and drive in, it was close to 7 AM when I started out.
The heat dome that had settled over California at the start of September had been shattered by Hurricane Kay, and it was only 37 degrees as I started south down the cool and shady Mineral King Valley towards Farewell Gap. The cold temperatures and relatively gradual incline meant I could maintain a steady pace, and it took me a bit over an hour to cover the first 3.5 miles to the trail junction leading to Franklin Pass.
In an effort to utilize more trail for the ascent, my plan was to climb Florence first via the Franklin Pass trail, then travel cross country mostly downhill to Farewell Gap to tag Vandever. So I followed the trail east towards Franklin Lakes, finally hitting the morning sun allowing me to ditch my winter hat for the rest of the day.
I hadn’t realized that the trail does not hit the lake directly, and I was several switchbacks above the water when I realized I probably should have topped up for the rest of the day. Luckily, I found a spring just off the trail on the southern slopes of Rainbow Mountain, and I filled my water for the dry ridgeline traverse. I was pleased with how close Florence Peak looked, and it seemed reasonable to tag Rainbow Mountain as a bonus summit, only a few hundred feet above. The only hitch was that those few hundred feet were steep and sandy, and I decided to continue on the trail nearly to Franklin Pass before hooking back north towards the summit of Rainbow, allowing me to utilize more solid rock near the ridgeline. This still was a bit tedious with some of the only real scrambling of the day, and I topped out on the 12,043′ summit a bit after 10:30 AM. The views from the top were actually quite good, with Mount Russell, Whitney and Langley to the east, the Kaweahs to the north and the Palisades in the distance. To the south was Florence Peak with a backdrop of thick smoke from the nearby Summit Fire. Although I was aware of the fire, at only a few hundred acres and fairly controlled I hadn’t expected it would be generating quite so much smoke. Luckily prevailing winds from the north and west would keep the air in Mineral King fairly clear the entirety of the day.
After a short break I started back down the south ridgeline towards the Franklin Pass trail, dropping more directly and rapidly down the sandy slopes I had avoided on the ascent, wiping out directly on the trail.
I dusted myself off and continued on, leaving the trail at Franklin Pass, skirting some boulders to the south to reach the eastern slopes of Florence Peak. The rock was quite solid as I started up the talus slopes and boulders, although my lack of time spent at altitude this year certainly caught up with me, taking nearly 45 minutes to reach the summit from Franklin Pass.
As the highest mountain I would be climbing for the day, I took a longer break at the summit, enjoying the views across Mineral King and Sequoia National Park to the north. Moro Rock and Alta Peak were fairly obvious in the distance, although it was difficult to pick out individual mountains beyond in Kings Canyon. To the more immediate north were Sawtooth and Needham Mountains climbed on my last trip to the area, with the striking Kaweahs serving as a backdrop.
The descent off the west was a bit trickier than I had expected, with a few short class 3 cliff bands to work through, nothing sketchy but requiring a bit of route finding to navigate. As I climbed the unnamed subpeak 12,146′, the rock abruptly transitioned from grey granite to red talus, which thankfully proved to be just as solid. Another unnamed false summit now lay between myself and my final objective, Vandever Mountain. However only about a half mile to the north was Tulare Peak, which was reported to have a summit register entry from Yvon Chounaird.
On the map, it looked like I could traverse to Farewell Gap from Tulare Peak without too much unnecessary descent, and it looked more enjoyable than going up and over 11,783′. So I dropped to the north, more or less following the gentle ridgeline and reaching the summit of Tulare Peak shortly after 2 PM. The summit register was only a few years old, the original either stolen or stored in a Bay Area library for safe keeping. As I feared Vandever Mountain looked even further thanks to Mineral King Valley separating us, although assuming the terrain wasn’t too loose, I figured I could traverse to Farewell Gap in about an hour, with another hour and change to reach the summit.
So without wasting much time, I headed back along the ridgeline to the south, dropping down packed red talus towards Farewell Gap. Some steep slopes and small cliff bands forced me to drop further down slope, but I ultimately hit the normal trail a few switchbacks below Farewell Gap, taking roughly an hour from Tulare Peak as planned. The summit of Vandever Mountain was directly overhead and from below it looked like an absolute slog.
As I started up the talus slopes, my optimism quickly grew as I found the rock quite stable. Even so, the 1,400′ of relatively solid talus still took me a bit over an hour, reaching the summit of Vandever at 4:15 PM and marking my 93rd SPS summit. Although the skies had been clear all day, clouds moved in just as I was topping out, obscuring my views in most directions with a few windows through the clouds to the north.
Although I had considered dropping off to the west and descending via the White Chief Mine trail, I could not see the route through the clouds and decided to instead descend by Farewell Gap, knowing I would have no issues descending the talus slopes even in low visibility. So I dropped back east, finding the compact talus that aided my ascent just a bit too stable to plunge step and quickly descend. It took about 30 minutes to reach the trail, allowing me to pick up the pace for the hike back to the trailhead. I passed one day hiker and a three-some of backpackers starting up towards Franklin Lakes on the hike out, the only humans I would wind up seeing all day. It was nearly 6:30 when I reached the trailhead, getting back from the summit of Vandever in under 2 hours and giving me just enough daylight to navigate the windy roads and nearly reach Three Rivers before darkness set in for the rest of the drive home.
What a beautiful area to hike.